World Heritage: Protecting the World’s ‘Beautiful Places’

Abstract

This chapter is about one global protected area type: World Heritage properties. The global environmental treaty for the protection of the world's outstanding cultural and natural heritage has received widespread uptake from countries across the world. Thus, the World Heritage Convention is widely considered to be a successful instrument and many, many iconic places from the Great Wall of China to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia are now protected in ways they would not be, but for their World Heritage status. In this chapter, I consider the evolution of the World Heritage ideal and detail the regulatory dimensions that countries are required to implement for their World Heritage properties---which include management plans, boundaries and buffer zones. My focus on these legal obligations is then applied to case study sites from the Asian, Pacific-Oceanic and Australian region.